‘I let clients go’: Founder says she won’t compromise employees’ work-life balance

She recalled staying late to finish deadlines, even when it meant missing dinner with her children or working through Saturdays. That changed when she began looking at which projects actually produced the strongest results.

‘Work just slowly gets less interesting’

Sham said she noticed that the best work was rarely created when her designers were exhausted. “A tap never runs empty. A well does, and once it does, no amount of pushing brings the water back faster. Push too hard without rest, and it runs dry, no matter how skilled the person is,” she wrote.

Read her post:

That realisation prompted Sham to rethink how she managed her team. The policy has not come without consequences. Sham admitted that some clients chose to leave because they preferred working with teams that could take calls or work on weekends.

“I let them go and kept the rule,” she said.

Sham also pointed out that burnout does not necessarily show up immediately. “A tired designer does not run out of ideas all at once. The work just slowly gets less interesting, and nobody notices until a client points it out,” she wrote.

‘Aspire to be where you already are’

Her post has since sparked a wider conversation on LinkedIn, with several professionals agreeing that longer hours do not automatically translate into better work.

“Agreed. Long working hours don’t necessarily lead to better results. While staying back late for submissions, sometimes the team’s mind becomes more focused on leaving for home rather than on the work itself. Productivity is not always about spending more hours—it’s about making those hours count,” wrote one user.

“Would love to see more studios do this. The real blocker for most of us is that clients are rarely free during regular work hours, so the industry ends up structurally built around late nights and weekends, not by choice. It’s a shift I want to work towards as well, even if slowly,” said another.

“I resonate with this, though perhaps not to the extent that you do. On most days, I make it a point not to have my team work late. And yes, on a few special occasions, I shamelessly do. I aspire to be where you already are. Posts like this inspire me—and reassure me that I’m moving in the right direction: that building sustainably, rather than constantly burning the midnight oil, is the way to go,” added a third individual.